1:1
Strong's | Transliteration | Greek | English | Morphology |
746 [e] | Archē | Ἀρχὴ | [The] beginning | N-NFS |
3588 [e] | tou | τοῦ | of the | Art-GNS |
2098 [e] | euangeliou | εὐαγγελίου | gospel | N-GNS |
2424 [e] | Iēsou | Ἰησοῦ | of Jesus | N-GMS |
5547 [e] | Christou | Χριστοῦ | Christ, | N-GMS |
5207 [e] | Huiou | Υἱοῦ | Son | N-GMS |
2316 [e] | Theou | Θεοῦ. | of God. | N-GMS |
Our two candidates here are:
- 1) The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2) The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
- 5 = Negative description of Jesus. Example would be 1:41, an angry Jesus.
4 = Significant problem for Christian assertion. Example would be 16:8, no narrative of historical communication with a resurrected Jesus.
3 = Contradiction with Christian/Jewish Bible. Example would be 1:2, entire quote attributed to Isaiah.
2 = Clear preference for one candidate where the meanings are similar. Example would be 1:10, "upon" rather than "into".
1 = Minor preference for one candidate due to improved accuracy/coordination. Example would be 1:4, "John the Baptizer" vs. "John baptizing".
The Difficult Reading Principle has two underlying questions, one Internal and one External:
- Internal = which candidate was our author more likely to have written?
External = which candidate were copyists more likely to choose?
On the other hand, the External question is clearly answered. Orthodox Christian copyists would have much preferred inclusion of sog as each successive Gospel and editing of that Gospel tries to make the timing of Jesus' sog earlier.
Conclusion = The Force of The Difficult Reading Principle is strong in this one (son of god) and is a level 4.
Joseph
Skeptical Textual Criticism